(WSVN) - A sport known to combine tennis, badminton and ping pong; can you guess the name?
Pickleball is a sport that is growing in popularity worldwide, and three members of a South Florida family take this sport very seriously: the Johnsons of Boynton Beach, where a mother, son and daughter are among the best players in the world of pickleball.
They are the only family to be ranked high in the official standings of the sport; the Johnsons have only been playing for two years.
“When covid hit, everything changed for us,” said Julie, “and we started doing pickleball together as a family. I guess you can say the rest is history, but no one saw it coming.”
Julie, 50, is second in the world masters ranking in the Association of Pickleball Professionals.
“The speed of it could be similar, but the problem is the court is so much smaller that it doesn’t necessarily get hit as hard as a tennis ball,” said Julie. “It travels a shorter distance [where] it seems pretty fast.”
Nineteen-year-old JW is the number one player in the men’s senior world rankings; his tennis background was the perfect transition to pickleball.
“I think tennis helps because a lot of it, say like the overheads, the volleys, is kinda more like tennis,” said JW. “That helps in a lot of aspects.”
The youngest member of the family is 16-year-old Georgia. She used to play softball before she started playing pickleball professionally.
Now, she is ranked number one in the women’s division of the sport.
“It was fairly easy in the beginning,” said Georgia. “I didn’t even know the rules. I was just out there trying to hit my family members and vice versa. My brother has some of the fastest hands out of any pickleball player, and he’s really good at it.”
Practice on the court was not nearly as intense as it can be in a professional match.
“There’s a lot of body bagging that goes on,” said Julie. “You can see here I got hit right in the mouth yesterday, but that will teach me to keep my paddle up.”
This family goes all in for the love of the sport.
“It’s a lot of hard work,” said Julie. “We put in a lot of hours every day, not just into pickleball, but also fitness, and we really watch our nutrition. We do a lot of things together as a family to promote our fitness, and we’re all just competitive too.”
Recently, Franklin Sports signed the Johnsons to a multi-year endorsement deal, the first of its kind in pickleball.
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